CompuServe Messages

Tom: Interjecting here, there are a couple of books that describe Amiga desktop video. One is the Amiga Desktop Video Workbook, and another is the Amiga Multimedia Workbook. These are oversized volumes that come with PD software. Frankly, they may be a tad out of date unless they've been updated since the Amigas with Advanced Graphics Architecture were released. But they'll give you a flavor for the whole thing. There are a couple of other books, too. They don't tend to be widely available in the Mac/PC only computer sections in typical bookstores, though, so you might have to get them from a mail-order shop. The best way to get a feel for all this, short of looking over an Amiga DTV user's shoulder, is to look over some of the many Amiga-specific videos out there. There are a bunch of modestly priced VHS cassettes that cover various facets of doing Amiga graphics and video, and these might make a good yet inexpensive introduction. Check out any Amiga mail-order dealer in the various Amiga-specific magazines for more info. You can also get a *free* VHS/Hi8/laserdisc/et.al. demo tape of the Video Toaster by calling Newtek's 800 line in Topeka, KS. Wonderful stuff. Also, there are a couple of Amiga-specific cassettes showing off finished work, which are truly inspiring. Much has changed in the past year, thanks in part to the Video Toaster. Lots of new high-end hardware and software relating to multimedia, DTV and presentations has arrived for the Amiga platform and more is on the way. Despite the impression people may have left you, something to bear in mind is that on the Amiga you can get away in many cases with software-only solutions to video effects work. The Video Toaster is fabulous, but nothing in principle would prevent you from doing similar work in software only, given enough RAM. E.g., there are DVE-type utilities like Scala MM210, Animation Station, ImageFX, Imagemaster, Art Department Professional, TV*Show, and many more that handle digital effects in software. The best of the lot may be Scala, which in another incarnation is being used on many cable TV systems to manage active text screens complete with real-time special effects. I've used TV Text Professional, a $99 program, to do pro-quality CG for cable TV productions. There are much more powerful alternatives on the Amiga that are somewhat more expensive, but the point is that even "low-end" software can be quite powerful. One especially nice Amiga capability is Animfonts. These are really not fonts but instead animated "brushes" in a format standard to most Amiga programs but intended for use in animation and paint programs. They work in terms of a character set. So, for instance, you can have a glowing, 8-color 3D "fuse" burning into existence across the screen, across a graphics background or genlocked video, writing out a message as it goes; that sort of thing. Very, very easy to accomplish with modestly priced software, and it's immediately transferrable to video via a genlock or encoder. Hardly any work at all! Also there are Colorfonts, which are 3D color fonts that will work in almost any word processor, paint program or video titler. For higher quality work you can add third-party hardware like scanners, digitizers, 24- and 32-bit framebuffers, time base correctors, sequencers, genlocks, and A/B roll editing systems. Music and sound is fast becoming an Amiga strength. You get 8-bit, 4-voice digital audio standard on every Amiga, but there are third-party 16-bit boards that will let you do pro-quality sequencing and recording. Important because if you're doing a soundtrack you want to be able to merge high fidelity stereo sound with a video or a presentation, complete with SMPTE code. The Amiga multitasks beautifully and with low RAM overhead, and a system-level interprocess language (AREXX) makes it possible for virtually any application to work with any other, passing data back and forth and controlling external resources. I've worked with Amigas, PCs and Macs and equipped a cable TV studio with two Amigas. For video purposes, on a price-performance basis the Amiga wins hands down. Good luck in your musings.